Lots of Ministers floated budget ideas that failed to materialise, Simon Harris says

There were “lots of Ministers” who floated ideas and proposals in the media that ultimately never materialised in the budget announced by the Government this week, Tánaiste and Minister for Finance Simon Harris has said. Defending his Fine Gael colleague Minister for Culture Patrick O’Donovan, Harris said a €100 culture card for 16-year-olds would be delivered at some point in the lifetime of the Coalition, to get teenagers “away from the smartphones”. There was nothing unusual about Ministers pitching policies and schemes during budget negotiations, Harris said. “I’m not saying this to be provocative but there were lots of Ministers who put forward the case for lots of things,” he said. “Some of the things were in the budget, some of the things were in the papers and not in the budget.” READ MOREO’Donovan had pushed for a €100 voucher for 16-year-olds to participate in cultural activities, and a spokeswoman for the Minister suggested at one point money to fund the scheme had been secured. Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers intervened to clarify funding had not been set aside for the culture card. [ Chambers and O’Donovan at odds over ‘culture card’ ideaOpens in new window ]Separately, the Government had no desire to “rerun” the drama and controversy around RTÉ’s governance, and a dispute over State funding for the public service broadcaster would hopefully be resolved soon, Harris said. The €20 million that RTÉ had been left short of what it expected to receive in Budget 2027 was not an “insignificant sum”, but it was fiscally “manageable” in the context of the total budget package, he said. “It’s right and proper, though, that the Government just satisfies itself that all the reforms are in place ... I think there’s good leadership in RTÉ, there’s a robust board in RTÉ, they’re on a journey of reform. It’s not easy and Government wants to support that,” he said. [ RTÉ likely to get back €20m lost in Budget 2027 ‘if it proves reforms are on track’Opens in new window ]Harris was speaking to The Irish Times in Luxembourg after a meeting of EU finance ministers. There could come a day when changes to corporation tax, intellectual property regimes and multinational group planning meant the State’s budgetary situation looked quite different, the Minister said. “It would be imprudent and foolish to operate and run your economy on the assumption that this will all continue forever,” he said. However, Harris said politicians should not be “fatalistic” about such a scenario coming to pass. “You’d rather have this set of economic challenges that Ireland has [than] many others,” he said. The healthy surplus, buoyed by bumper corporation tax receipts, had allowed the Government to take significant steps to buffer people from the impacts of the global energy shock. “We’ve brought in – I’m confident – the largest level of intervention of any EU member state per head of capita,” Harris said. The Government had begun to hit the “outer limit” of what it could do to help with the rising cost of fuel and energy. “These aren’t consequence-free decisions – it’s real money,” Harris said. There was no easy or simple way to address rising costs as long as the US war in Iran kept the Strait of Hormuz closed, he said. The global economy had held up better than initially predicted in the face of the vital shipping route for oil and gas being choked off, but ordinary people were still “acutely” feeling the pinch, Harris said. The Tánaiste said there was no reluctance to criticise US president Donald Trump, but doing so would not make a “meaningful difference” to the situation the world was facing. “There’s absolutely no doubt the Strait of Hormuz, its closure, the situation in Iran, the failure to de-escalate between the US and Iran, is having a real, painful economic impact on the world,” he said.